Today I thought I’d just whip up a quick post with a tip and share a new image with you. Jacinta should be no stranger to you now if you follow my blog. When she was last here in Perth we teamed up on a number of different projects some of which you can see here and here. (highly recommend checking out those links)
In the last 6 months or so I have been actively doing more and more composites and learning all the ins-and-outs to a successful composite. It’s always been an interest of mine and I have had some jobs recently which have required it (such as the Top Shelf Entertainment photos) , and I can’t help but want to do more. It’s a great skill to have and it allows you to be more creative.
Now lets get to the point. This image above is a perfect example of mismatching focal lengths between the image of the subject and the image of the background. If there is something strange about this image that you can’t quite put your finger on, then this is probably it.
The image of the background was taken with a wide lens, probably somewhere around 16-20mm, and gives you the feeling of being right there in the location. The photo of Jacinta however, was not taken on a wide lens. The photo of Jacinta was taken with a longer lens, at 125mm! Obviously these are two very different focal lengths and they create much different perspectives. Take a photo of a person at 16mm and then take a photo of them at 125mm. You will notice it’s a very different look and feel. The perspective changes.
These two images were obviously not intended to go together. If they were, I would have photographed Jactina up close, with a wide lens. That way when I add her to the background, the perspective will match that of the background image, and she will look part of the scene. It would look more realistic.
Its also important to try keep your camera height/position fairly similar when you shoot the portrait, just as you did when you shoot the background. Sometimes you can get away with moving it around, but other times you need to keep it perfectly at the same height. If you don’t have the time to shoot you’re own backgrounds then you will need to carefully select your stock background images to match your subjects.
In the end I really liked the way I edited this image, so I changed it to a portrait so the wide background shot was less evident, and the image looks a lot more believable. The change in perspective of the two images isn’t any where near as obvious.
Below is a behind the scenes timelapse of the whole shoot thanks to my buddy Karl Pearce. We were in and out in under an hour from memory. It had to be a very quick shoot as the gym was in use by other people. Anyway hope you enjoy and hopefully I can share some more photos from this shoot soon.
Thanks to Evolution MMA for use of their Gym yet again!
Jacinta Action Girl BTS from karlos108 on Vimeo.
It has a massive benefit of really taking your skills and workflow to a new level and any new techniques you’re using really sink into your brain. The downside I find though, is that by the time you get to the last image, you already want to go back and re-do the first one! You’ve fine-tuned your style and workflow over days of retouching, and you want to go and apply the improvements to your first image.
